Talking Turkey

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Does it seem like this has been a really long winter? Are you wishing for a break in the weather, sunshine, anything that might indicate springtime?

I’ve been leafing through seed and hatchery catalogues for months. Seeds are ordered, the garden is planned, and in about a month I’ll be starting the plants that are languishing in their seed packets here on the shelf.

It’s the hatchery catalogues that I dream over now.Maybe just a few more chickens?Maybe another heirloom breed would fit in my small flock.Meat birds this year?Quail?

A friend and I have nearly decided to work together to raise turkeys this year.And that’s where I hit a wall.I—well, we—don’t know anyone in our area who has raised turkeys that could give us some advice.

Can you help us?We have specific questions that small flock “turkey people” could answer.We’ve thought since I have experience raising chicks, I could handle that part of the project.My friend has no poultry on her homestead, but has plenty of land, so she would plan to raise the turkeys once they were feathered.

From the beginning—would you recommend hatching eggs, poults from a hatchery, older chicks?Neither of us have incubators, although I often have a broody hen or two.Have you ever purchased fertile turkey eggs?How did it work out for you?

I have always used a heat lamp setup in our attached garage, with shavings for bedding.For chicks, I have made a circular pen that can expand as they grow.What problems have you experienced with young turkeys?

What breed of turkey would you suggest?We would (yes—we would) want a couple for our freezers and probably one for our Thanksgiving tables—and I know enough about turkeys to know that some of the market type birds can’t reproduce. Have you raised heirloom turkeys?Have you had any luck breeding them –because that’s something my friend might consider.

Housing—any suggestions, hints, or comments that you could offer?Would a “chicken tractor” type shelter work for turkeys?

And feeding—I’ve read that turkeys require a higher protein feed than laying hens.What would you feed the poults, when would you change the type of feed—or don’t you?

Is there a particular book you use for reference?A website?

Please offer your best advice in the comment section – and we’ll keep you updated.If we decide our winter dreams of turkey farming can become a reality, you may follow along with the progress of the project.

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17 Comments

We have raised Heritage turkeys for well over 25 years, now semi retired, and have some information for you. First of all I have read many of the above comments and found them uninformative as they are false and long perpetrated misunderstandings. So some good advise: Most folks fail at raising turkeys because they do not keep them warm and dry. Turkey poults are very sensitive to hypothermia. They are not at all durable in cold or wet circumstances. Turkeys also do not die easily if cared for properly but they are delicate until they are fully feathered. Heritage turkeys and Commercial turkeys are both turkeys but beyond that designation they are not even in the same ballpark. Heritage turkeys are natural graziers, scratchers and they do fly well. Heritage turkeys can and will raise their own poults. However, all turkeys tend to be a bit clumsy and can smash their eggs when kept in an enclosed coop. Out in a field they rarely smash any eggs. All turkeys require at least 24% protein feed. People try to skimp with 18% chicken feed. This is inadequate and will cause multiple issues. Heritage Turkeys will roost and require a 2×4 board, these birds do get heavy. Toms are very aggressive at breeding and they will attack you if you challenge them but be brave you can scare them off. Please keep toddlers away from them as tom can knock a child over, scary for the tot. Turkeys raised inside require lots of room, each tom needs at least 4 square feet. Hens about 3 sq feet. Turkeys require a great deal of water about 1 gal each per day per adult. As winter draws close their natural compunction is to eat…eat…eat. your feed bill will increase dramatically as you get closer to harvest. Commercial Turkeys are a completely different animal. Commercials rarely forage or scratch and if thety do it is very little. They are developed to produce soft tissue and so are poor in bone structure development and in circulatory system development. This makes them weak, lazy and useless for reproduction. They are not normally able to live more than 18 months whereas a Heritage bird can live 12+ years. We have some here that are 14 years old. Commercials grow very fast and can be 45+ pounds in just 5 months. They are susceptable to hip dysplasia, asities (s) and heart attack and stroke. This is because they have an adult body mass on a childs frame and circulatory system. (Commercial chickens have the same issues- cornish crosses). There is lots more I could share If you are interested. We raised our birds with out chemicals, antibiotics, or additives with great success. A good book if you can find it is Raising Turkeys by Marsden and Martin Published in the 1930’s. In my opinion most current books are not adequate for Heritage birds. The ALBC has a good resource list. Bill Y. Townline Farm Poultry Reserve, Inc. Linesville, PA.

I’ve been raising turkeys, both heritage breed and BBs, for 20 years. I prefer the heritage birds for flavor, but the BB grow faster and larger. All of my poults are now hatched in incubators and raised by silkie hens. I raise black soldier flies and mealworms for regular feedings for the poults and also feed sprouts (called fodder). Doing this has cut losses significantly. But make no mistake, turkeys take some work. I raise midget white, narragansett, standard bronze, and royal palm. The biggest necessity is keep them dry!

I have raised turkeys for 7 years and have found that the white BB turkeys are very friendly and butcher well. The BB Bronze I had killed each other so I don’t raise them anymore.The heritage breeds take longer to feed out so it costs more. I have learned to purchase them in late july or early august and butcher just before thanksgiving. Great feed to lb ratios and still end up with 30lb + dressed out.

I raised a few turkeys along with my chickens. They were all purchased together , as poults, and grew up together along with a few ducks. Everyone got along just fine. No problems with any disease or any other negative issues. They free-range during the day & were all housed in the coop at night. The turkey’s were butchered for Thanksgiving & Christmas dinners. I will raise more this year. Good luck. Debbie

I have raised turkeys for 2 years with success. The first year, I purchased Spanish Black poults from a local breeder. We raised and butchered 3 toms for Thanksgiving for my family and a neighbor. My family raved and wanted a repeat the next year. Year 2, I purchased fertile eggs and hatched the chicks here. I did not have a very good hatch rate, but am unsure of the fertility rate from the small breeder we purchased from. Still, 8 poults hatched and I only lost one that perished right away. I found out that turkeys imprint much like ducks. We had a variety of breeds and butchered 1 royal palm and 1 heritage bronze for Thanksgiving. I have to say, the heritage bronze was the best tasting when compared to the royal palm and last year’s Spanish Black. We kept 1 tom and 2 hens and this year, we’re going start to finish! Breeding, hatching and butchering for the feast in 2014. I house the turkeys with my other poultry and have not had any problem with black head or any other diseases. I also feed them right along with my laying hens and they have developed and were ready to butcher come Thanksgiving. I found them easy and fun raise. They are very entertaining birds with complex vocalizations and although I’m sure many will disagree, I think they are smarter than chickens.

I raise Bourbon Reds, initially from young poults, now from eggs. They are very similar to chicks and I raise them together when young and in the yard together in the summer. Winter pens are different since chickens get a layer feed all year and not turkeys.The Bourbons are very broody and will sit together on one communal nest at my place ie 2 or 3 birds trying to fit in one nest and rotating. I also hatch in an incubator to extend the laying numbers so each season has both types of chicks. Expect no more than 50% hatch rates in an incubator.If you raise them naturally be sure to remove the Tom before the hatch date. My Tom ALWAYS tries to stomp new hatchlings if he is in the coop when they hatch. Stupid birds, no question.I like the large heritage breed since they get big enough to harvest before being fully mature, if you are interested, so you can have very large breeders and 5-10lb slaughter birds each season. They Bourbons are very tasty.Friendly when young, curious, dumb and then the Tom can become aggressive when breeding as an adult. Even a tame guy can change attitude when he is the alpha male.

I raised two turkey poults this past summer. They started out in a plastic storage bin in my living room, then we moved them into an old dog house with an elevated screened in porch as we raise chickens and were afraid of Black head disease. When they outgrew that they went in with the ducks and geese until we built them their own pen. I was told they were White Hollands but they were very big. Almost 40 pounds after 4 or 5 months. They were very friendly and curious and a real joy until the male decided he had a crush on me, or so it was explained by an older gentleman who raised turkeys. He never bothered my husband but it got to where I couldn’t go out in the yard if they were out. We had to give them away. I read later that you should not handle males too much when they are little as they will bond with you and become aggressive when they are ready to mate. Don’t know if that”s true but it seemed like it!

One of the best pieces of advice I got from Joel Salatin: raise chicks and poults together. Apparently, turkey’s fall somewhere near the bottom of the intelligence scale, and chickens make great “caretakers” in the first few crucial weeks of life. Good luck! 🙂

We ordered 7 Jersey Buff poults along with some chicks and lost 3 in shipping. Shipping is just too hard on them. I wouldn’t subject any to that again. So the following year we allowed a pair to breed (our remaining 4 were from 2 different blood lines). A very sneaky hen laid 16 eggs in the weeds. We found them and put a poultry fence around her. We left her with 12 and gave 4 to a broody chicken. The turkey hatched 8 of them. They are very fragile to begin with. They had a tough time walking in short grass (4″). The hen crouch-walked only 3-4 feet at a time to give them shelter. She was an amazing momma and she did this for days. The broody chicken wasn’t patient with “chicks” that she expected to hit the ground running. She eventually lost all of her poults. Won’t do that again. We ended up with 4 full sized turkeys. We lost the others due to a chickensitter’s negligence but that’s another story. So far I have only butchered 2 toms. At 7 months they were 16.5lb and 15.5lb dressed. They had a wonderful amount of fat (1/2″ average) and tasted fantastic. We free range our birds together (turks & chooks). We have not had an issue with blackhead or other diseases. We feed plenty of garlic and cayenne pepper as preventatives. The cayenne kills the blackhead parasites in the chickens. We plan to allow our breeding pair to hatch another clutch this spring. They do make good doorbells when visitors arrive. And we’ve eaten and baked with the eggs which bake just as well as duck eggs. Good luck.

We have a mix of breeds. The narangansett and blue slates we have are the smaller, and the red bouron tend to be a bit larger. We let them breed and we hatch the chicks in an incubator. Very young chicks are fragile, and we keep ours in the house under a heat lamp until it’s warm enough outside to move them to the brooder box in the barn. (We live in Michigan – still lots of snow on the ground). The chicks we get are mutts as the narangansett is our head tom. They live in the garage section of our barn, and I have a young chick shed built in there as well. The turkeys all like to roost on the roof of that inner building. They winter rather well, but even for them, this winter has been tough. They venture out on sunny days, which have been few and far between. During the spring, summer and fall, they free range, going back into their garage in the evening to roost. We’re into a more natural diet, so they get scratch green from April to the following January when it gets real cold, then I give them layer pellets because it has more protein in it. They also get an occasional scoop of dog food all year long as a treat. They don’t get as big as what I have heard other turkeys might get on this diet, but they are healthy and happy as they eat grass and bugs out of the backyard. I process them myself. Darker birds have feathers that when the feathers are newer, they are filled with a type of ink which is a bit interesting to get out. They taste delicious! My husband hunts wild turkeys in the spring, and our farm birds taste very similar to the wild ones. I usually process my birds (turkeys, ducks and whatever roosters I might have) at the end of October when it is nice and cool enough to let them brine in a bin outside without having to worry about flies and spoilage. Hopefully this is helpful. We enjoy raising them and usually have between five and 10 to process each fall, depending on how many we were able to hatch, and/or if we were able to sell any throughout the year.

I have raised turkeys for a few years. I a have only done the Market breeds. The giant Whites and Broad breasted Bronze. One time I got them in March and byt he time I processed in early Nov. We had some dress out at 40lbs. They were huge. so now I only get them in June and they are smaller still big but smaller. They cant breed so I have no help there. They do tend to die easily at first. Once you make it past 2 to 3 weeks they are pretty good. Once you make it to 6 weeks they will only die from a predator or a rare disease. I recommend the Whites now cause the Bronze ones are tough to process cause the feathers will leave the ink or colored ends in and then you have to really spend the time pulling those out. I usually do 15 to 30 turkeys and that always leaves plenty in the freezer. One year I had over 400 pounds of turkey in the freezer. So be ready if you get a lot and they get big.

ive raised turkeys 4 years-mortality isn’t well but ive been told its because all my hens and ducks-seem to give the turkeys black head–I let all my birds free range—I love them all and have had the same luck with the different breeds-last year when I had them processed they were very large up to 40lbs–so I couldn’t harvest myself-burgundy reds and nassagest–they wintered well–the 2 I kept–they are very entertaining and fallow me everywhere—they meet every visitor here at the driveway and that keeps down company —I guess because of their size and them posturing–good luck to you and enjoy

We have raised turkeys 2 years in a row and would do it again. I would consider the Holland White or Midget White turkeys that don’t get too big. The bigger ones are really heavy if you have to process them yourself. When we were buying our baby turkeys, the older gentleman who ran the feed store said to get a few baby chickens to put in with your turkeys. The chicks will teach the turkeys how to eat. Turkeys are pretty stupid. We live in Arizona and if I raised turkeys again, I would wait until May or June to get them. They are usually processed after 6 months and it helps if they are at their largest when the weather is cooler. One year we got some in February and they were pretty big in August. One of them died in the heat and he weighed 28 lbs.! It was really sad to see that waste. They are better tasting that anything you buy in a store. Good luck.

I raised some Blue Slate turkeys and they were friendly and docile. I found raising turkeys difficult. My Dad told me not to bother that “half will die and the other half will get away and you’ll never catch them”. He was right, half of them died, I ended up with 7 out of 15 poults and they all got infectious sinusitis. One got away but he was afraid to be away from his flock and just sat down in the middle of the yard until I came to rescue him. At any rate, at 5 months they weighed 12-15 pounds dressed. I brined one of them and roasted him for Thanksgiving and it was, hands down, the most delicious turkey I’ve ever eaten. Also the most expensive, it cost me about $34 per bird to raise them and that doesn’t include any time, just the cost of the poults and feed.

And no, I’m not a complete beginner, I’ve had chickens for nearly all of my 59 years and I’ve raised ducks, pheasants and guineas in addition to chickens. Turkeys were difficult, fragile, and had a high mortality rate, as well as being expensive. I wouldn’t do it again.

I raised my first 4 (2 Bourbon and 2 Royal palm) this year. Bought them at the local farmers market at the age of about 2 weeks and they have done great. They live with ducks, geese, and chickens and they all free range together. The females prefer to roost in the rafters of the barn, so I clipped their wing feathers and now they roost with the chickens. No disease problems and they learned the daily routine just as well as the chicks did and better than the ducks who are a bit dim.

The local feed store owner told me to feed them game bird feed which is the right protein mix for turkeys, and with the natural vegetable and bug supplements they find, they have done quite well. One of the hens likes to sit on a big tree stump with me and lets me pet her, but the other three aren’t convinced. All in all, I am enjoying them and would recommend at least giving them a try.The Palm royal males are gorgeous!